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ladytetra777) wrote2024-05-30 07:53 pm
ladytetra777) wrote2024-05-30 07:53 pm
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The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures XIV and XV
["The Value of Saintliness" is spread across two lectures, but combined in one chapter in the CLC edition of the text.]
James' criteria to test the value of saintliness, the fruits of religious life, is a general investigation using common sense and empiricism (330-334, 377). He references the "apodeictic certainty" Kant intended to achieve in sketching the limits and functions of human reason in his first Critique, only to cast it aside, further adding that theological methodology will ultimately prove unhelpful in this endeavor (328-330). While he admits an susceptibility to skepticism as a response to this mode of inquiry, there is an additional advantage in how saintliness is more open to interpretation and judgment of a later generation. There can be no objective, final word said on the value of saintliness, but I think James is implying here that this parameter demonstrates the transcendence of a saint. Ultimately, circumspection of saintliness as the efficacy of its outward actions and underlying attitudes in relation to the locality they transpire in yields a boon. To summarize James' position with a quote attributed to Greer: "this shit works."
The qualities and actions of saintly character described in the previous chapter are most effective when exercised as a sort of Platonic golden mean, vulnerable to deficiency and excess whereby they are warped in their expression. I suspected something of this sort in my remarks on the asceticism of Suso in my previous chapter summary, and indeed James comments here on a lack of ascetic balance presenting itself as "keep[ing] the outer nature too important" (361). The ascetics who fall into obsession with their self-mortification in some part miss the point of the practice, as James continues, saying "[a]ny one who is genuinely emancipated from the flesh will look on pleasures and pains, abundance and privation, as alike irrelevant and indifferent" (361).
Suso is a contentious example in that his practices did indeed lead to him having a mystical experience, yet I cannot find a practicality in his asceticism toward the service of others which I took to be a sign of him missing other attributes of saintly character. Yet, if he ceased his practice upon revelation, then he himself adjusted his work.
Another example James brings up is in the tendency of Saint Teresa to overintellectualize her works (346-347). James finds that each new discovery she finds is steeped in a superficiality, characterized as a flirtation. I find that a critical weakness in excessive exposition takes the concept of devoutness and reroutes it to be about the practitioner and not what is being practiced. James finds that a genuine, less over-acted response would ultimately be one of gratitude and then silence. If the true nature of God is truly ineffable, then the most-known line of Wittgenstein applies here too: "whereof one cannot speak, one must be silent."
Yet, those who achieve balance of these saintly qualities still succeed, not just in their spiritual life, but in their relationships to others. I understand these people as those who do good works simply because they are good, but the broader implications include but are not limited to how they can benefit a community, deepen an area of research, and inspire others. I think of Hildegard of Bingen, a woman who made substantial contributions to theology and music in her time, but the community leader of two monasteries near the end of her life. My introduction to her was in high school choir, her music used as an example of monophony, but as an adult, I learned that she guided many Christians in their religious life. Here, I think Hildegard would be a candidate for a saint, and her leading the establishment of Eibingen Abbey demonstrates an efficacy that can be observed with James' criteria of common sense and empiricism: this woman led to real-world change that benefitted other people in her time.
Discussion of St. John of the Cross in the previous chapter summary and Hildegard here are pointing toward the next chapter of the text: mysticism. Now that saintliness can be discussed and assessed, I anticipate James will need to further pare back and certainty that can be achieved when discussing experiences that do not map onto words effectively. Personally, I think I need this; if I have had experiences that no words can capture, is there anything for me to do with them other than to let them go?
James' criteria to test the value of saintliness, the fruits of religious life, is a general investigation using common sense and empiricism (330-334, 377). He references the "apodeictic certainty" Kant intended to achieve in sketching the limits and functions of human reason in his first Critique, only to cast it aside, further adding that theological methodology will ultimately prove unhelpful in this endeavor (328-330). While he admits an susceptibility to skepticism as a response to this mode of inquiry, there is an additional advantage in how saintliness is more open to interpretation and judgment of a later generation. There can be no objective, final word said on the value of saintliness, but I think James is implying here that this parameter demonstrates the transcendence of a saint. Ultimately, circumspection of saintliness as the efficacy of its outward actions and underlying attitudes in relation to the locality they transpire in yields a boon. To summarize James' position with a quote attributed to Greer: "this shit works."
The qualities and actions of saintly character described in the previous chapter are most effective when exercised as a sort of Platonic golden mean, vulnerable to deficiency and excess whereby they are warped in their expression. I suspected something of this sort in my remarks on the asceticism of Suso in my previous chapter summary, and indeed James comments here on a lack of ascetic balance presenting itself as "keep[ing] the outer nature too important" (361). The ascetics who fall into obsession with their self-mortification in some part miss the point of the practice, as James continues, saying "[a]ny one who is genuinely emancipated from the flesh will look on pleasures and pains, abundance and privation, as alike irrelevant and indifferent" (361).
Suso is a contentious example in that his practices did indeed lead to him having a mystical experience, yet I cannot find a practicality in his asceticism toward the service of others which I took to be a sign of him missing other attributes of saintly character. Yet, if he ceased his practice upon revelation, then he himself adjusted his work.
Another example James brings up is in the tendency of Saint Teresa to overintellectualize her works (346-347). James finds that each new discovery she finds is steeped in a superficiality, characterized as a flirtation. I find that a critical weakness in excessive exposition takes the concept of devoutness and reroutes it to be about the practitioner and not what is being practiced. James finds that a genuine, less over-acted response would ultimately be one of gratitude and then silence. If the true nature of God is truly ineffable, then the most-known line of Wittgenstein applies here too: "whereof one cannot speak, one must be silent."
Yet, those who achieve balance of these saintly qualities still succeed, not just in their spiritual life, but in their relationships to others. I understand these people as those who do good works simply because they are good, but the broader implications include but are not limited to how they can benefit a community, deepen an area of research, and inspire others. I think of Hildegard of Bingen, a woman who made substantial contributions to theology and music in her time, but the community leader of two monasteries near the end of her life. My introduction to her was in high school choir, her music used as an example of monophony, but as an adult, I learned that she guided many Christians in their religious life. Here, I think Hildegard would be a candidate for a saint, and her leading the establishment of Eibingen Abbey demonstrates an efficacy that can be observed with James' criteria of common sense and empiricism: this woman led to real-world change that benefitted other people in her time.
Discussion of St. John of the Cross in the previous chapter summary and Hildegard here are pointing toward the next chapter of the text: mysticism. Now that saintliness can be discussed and assessed, I anticipate James will need to further pare back and certainty that can be achieved when discussing experiences that do not map onto words effectively. Personally, I think I need this; if I have had experiences that no words can capture, is there anything for me to do with them other than to let them go?